Oral Production Skills Research Articles

L1, quantity of exposure to L2 and reading disability as factors in L2 oral comprehension and production skills

This study investigated second language comprehension and oral skills in a control group and a reading deficit group (RDG) of 3rd graders in both Urdu and English medium schools in Pakistan. The main goal was to test the extent to which learning difficulties (such as a reading deficit in L1) negatively affected L2 achievement, and whether language immersion was a protective factor in L2 attainment in the case of learning difficulty.We used The English 2 Dyslexia test (Kaasa, Sanne, & Helland, 2004) originally designed to assess L2 skills in English in 6 graders in Norway. The test was adapted both in terms of content and in method of administration in order to make it appropriate for a somewhat younger group (grade 3) studying in a completely different school system (Pakistan). Consistent with our hypotheses, the children with reading deficit from both types of Pakistani schools in the present sample performed significantly more poorly on all L2 tasks than their peers in the control groups. Furthermore, both controls and reading deficit groups in the English medium schools scored considerably higher than their counterparts in the Urdu medium schools. More surprisingly, even the reading deficit children in the English medium schools demonstrated superior L2 skills compared to controls in Urdu medium schools.These results are consistent with earlier evidence that the process of acquiring skills in a second language can be affected negatively by a reading deficit. This is, however, the first study to provide evidence that increased exposure to the target language can be a protective factor in L2 attainment for children with a learning deficit.

Compétences orales et nouvelles technologies dans un cours de français langue étrangère

The oral communication skills should gain ground in language learning through new technologies. In this study examines the role that blogs, podcasts, social networks and telecollaborative projets have played in the development of oral production skills, as well as in learning and correction in pronunciation. During the period 2005 to 2015 several experiments with social media were conducted for this purpose as part of a French language course at the university of Leon in Spain. We will approach the results from our research in relation to the tools (blogs, podcasts, networks) and to the correction techniques for analyzing and evaluating the usefulness of new technologies in this training device.

The effects of immersive multimedia learning with peer support on speaking skill among male and female students

This study investigated the effects of immersive multimedia language learning technique on performance in English in terms of oral production skills in reading and speaking that involved six measures, namely, pausing, phrasing, stress, intonation, rate, and integration without the mediation of the first language of the students amongst both males and females. A quasi-experimental design was employed for the study. Eighty first-year university students enrolled in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) course were selected for this study and the teaching treatment was followed for eight sessions with one session per week. Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA. The findings showed that following the immersive multimedia learning, male students in the immersive multimedia group with peer support performed significantly better in four of the six measures of reading skills, namely, phrasing, stress, intonation, and integration as compared to their counterparts in the non-peer supported groups and there were no significant differences for pausing and rate. On the other hand, female students in the immersive multimedia learning with peer support group performed significantly better in all six measures of oral production for reading and speaking than their counterparts in the groups without peer support. These findings showed that the immersive multimedia technique with peer support reduced the use of code-switching strategies by the students and enabled them to develop oral production skills in English approaching the patterns of native speakers especially amongst the female students.

The Use of NSVC and their Effects on SRL, Learning Strategies, and Oral Production

This study investigated the use of Native-Speaker Video Clips (NSVC) to teach oral skills in English. A student with medium achievement in English was selected and given the treatment that comprised 12 weeks of recorded practice interspersed with 6 fortnightly oral presentations to the writer that were also recorded. The practice clips were analysed for the types of learning strategies employed, namely rehearsal, elaboration, and organization, and SRL which included meta-cognition, motivation and perseverance, while the oral production recordings were analysed for fluency, pronunciation, stressing, intonation and understanding. The findings showed that she adjusted the levels of use of almost all of HSRL factors following the feedbacks after each oral presentation except elaboration and organization factors, and those oral production skills were improved gradually. The findings revealed that it was purposeful to remove code-switching tendencies in the student.

A blended learning scenario to enhance learners’ oral production skills

<span>This paper examines the effectiveness of a mobile assisted blended learning scenario for pronunciation in Korean language. In particular, we analyze how asynchronous oral communication between learners of Korean and native speakers via "kakaotalk" (an open source mobile phone application) may be beneficial to the learner in terms of pronunciation. Our methodological approach is based on task resolution (Ellis, 2003) in peer-to-peer collaborative settings and the spaced repetition concept (Ebbinghaus, 1885, cited by Dempster, 1988). The outcomes of our study show that the learners appreciated the possibility to interact with native speakers but most of them preferred synchronous communication for training their pronunciation skills.</span>

Modern Communicative Methods of Teaching English Grammar to Intermediate Level Students

1 IntroductionLearning the grammar of a foreign language is important if you want to speak the language correctly. Nevertheless, the grammar of a foreign language can be tricky and not at all resembling the one of your mother tongue. That is why you need to be very well acquainted with your own grammar structures and only then try to learn another grammar.English grammar is not very difficult, although at first it appears to cause confusion. Grammar knowledge can be achieved through a lot of work and exercises, or even games. Of course it is a lot better if the student starts to learn it when he is very young - at a young age information is stored a lot faster - so that in high school, and later at university, new and difficult information can be placed on a solid base, thus reinforcing the student's ability to communicate more easily in the foreign language.Knowing only the theory of the English grammar is not enough, as a set of rules cannot help you communicate unless you have practice using them. Most teachers make the mistake of teaching a lot of rules and forget the essential part: exercises, games, assignments - in other words, their focus is mainly on the theory of the language rather than on its practice. In order to attract a student towards a foreign language you must also make grammar seem more accessible by using all the practice methods you can get. Teachers must always remember that only practice makes you better.What also helps is talking to foreigners (Americans, British, whatever they might be) as you get the chance to see English grammar in action this way. They use grammar constructions, sometimes sophisticated ones, without even thinking about the way they were formed, they use a tense without thinking what it might express, the same way Romanian students use Romanian without being able to explain some of its grammar rules.Over the past years emphasis has been laid on traditional methods, teachers trying to attempt only recently new modern methods, all these attempts being considered to make the student become more interested in the English language. But the question that comes up is the following: are we sure that these methods actually work? We all know that the traditional way of teaching is very relaxing for a student - he is not forced to think too much, he just writes the information and then uses it in exercises. The modern methods make students put their brain to use, communicate better, engage in conversation, thus acquiring the new knowledge during the English classes, at school.Starting from the hypothesis that traditional methods do not exactly help the student learn English more easily and that they definitely do not make the English class very enjoyable, I am going to prove in the following pages that modern methods help a student understand and improve grammar more easily and in a more entertaining way than the traditional ones. All these modern activities are meant to widen the students' horizon and make them realize that grammar is not only theory, but also practice and fun.2 Literature Review2.1 Oral communicative activitiesOral communication is a process that takes place between the speaker and the listener(s) and it involves the productive skill and the receptive skill of understanding (Byrne 1996:8).Teachers have to devote a large part of their class time to developing oral productive skills. It is very important for the students to develop the oral skills in the classroom so they can use them outside it, where they are supposed to have control over what is said to them and what they have to say. Poor understanding often results in nervousness, inhibiting the students' ability to speak.The texts the students have in their textbooks are not enough for them; they need a listening comprehension programme which will expose them to various models of natural speech. The learners have to be taught to listen as well as to speak. …

Researching Oral Production Skills of Young Learners

This chapter focuses on the development of young learners’ ability to communicate in a foreign language. An empirical study was carried out to determine whether, after four years of learning English as a compulsory school subject, children are ready to engage in oral interaction in a semicontrolled task and produce answers and questions in English. A convenience sample of ten-year-old children was selected from 180 participants in ELLiE2 in Poland. Six learners from one class of each of seven schools were selected on the basis of teachers’ reports to ensure equal proportions of learners with low, medium and high ability. Schools were chosen to represent different socio-economic milieux. The results of the Year Four oral test (an interactive task) showed that almost all the participating childrencould respond to questions but only half were able to ask questions. Considering generally positive attitudes to speaking activities, the results suggest that ten-year-old children are already developing their interactive skills and could benefit from more interaction-focused classroom activities. Further experimental classroom-based studies are necessary to gain better insight into potential oral achievements in this age group. The results are discussed in the context of national curriculum requirements, drawing on the Common European Framework of Reference level descriptors.

Oral Fluency, Accuracy, and Complexity in Formal Instruction and Study Abroad Learning Contexts

This study investigates the differential effects of two learning contexts, formal instruction (FI) at home and a study abroad period (SA), on the oral production skills of advanced‐level Catalan‐Spanish undergraduate learners of English. Speech samples elicited through an interview at three data collection times over a 2‐year period were quantitatively assessed for fluency, accuracy, and complexity. The results reveal robust fluency gains during SA, moderate improvement in accuracy, and lack of gains in complexity. No gains were obtained during FI. Initial fluency scores, rather than post‐FI scores, accounted for a substantial amount of variance in the fluency scores after SA. These findings provide strong evidence for the positive impact of an SA period on the development of oral fluency.

Content analysis of the fairy tale Cinderella – A longitudinal single-case study of narrative production: “From rags to riches”

Background: With regard to spontaneously produced speech and the oral production of a narrative, the content of the message(s) being conveyed by a person with Broca's aphasia with severe agrammatic sentence production must often be inferred from the telegraphic speech output. The clinician's inferences must often be revised to capture the intended meaning of a single utterance or sequence of utterances. When performing a formal analysis of such telegraphic utterances, researchers strive to provide an adequate reconstruction that approximates the speaker's intended meanings. Aims: In this single-case study, multiple oral (re)tellings of the fairy tale Cinderella are analysed in terms of the content of the produced narratives. The aim of this study is to trace and determine how the content of a person with aphasia's production of this fairy tale changes over time, and to tease apart the contribution of various linguistic domains in the production of a narrative. Methods & Procedures: Participant TH suffered a massive left hemisphere CVA at the age of 40 and was initially diagnosed as globally aphasic. By 36 months post onset his language impairment had evolved into Broca's aphasia characterised by agrammatic sentence production (oral and written language), mild apraxia of speech, and asyntactic auditory comprehension. He performed the task of orally (re)telling the fairy tale Cinderella eleven times over a 4½-year period, beginning 36 months post onset and extending to 93 months post onset of aphasia. His narratives were video- and audio-taped and the recordings were transcribed. The fairy tale Cinderella was interpreted in terms of its propositional content and its superstructure: orientation, development (episode 1, 2a, 2b, 3), complication ( = 4), solution (episode 5), coda, and evaluation of the narrative (Labov, 2000; Labov & Waletzky, 1967). The content of TH's narratives was evaluated independently by three clinicians. Outcomes & Results: A marked increase in the number of explicitly produced content units was observed across test times. Longitudinally, TH produced more informative narratives as evaluated in terms of propositional content units, elaborations, and evaluations. These changes in performance are attributed to TH's improved lexical retrieval for both nouns and verbs, and also to his improved syntactic skills. Conclusions: Qualitative and quantitative changes in producing the Cinderella narrative mirror TH's improved language processing, in particular his verb retrieval and oral sentence production skills. Longitudinally, analysis of the content of narratives provides insight into the evolution of text production with reference to the influence of several linguistic domains on narrative production. In summary, content analysis of orally produced narratives provides a departure point for examining the complex roles of various linguistic domains in the process of transforming ideas into articulated sentences and narratives.

Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Outcomes of the Au Pair Experience in the United Kingdom

It is a widely accepted belief that the best way to master a new language is to live in the country where the language is spoken. For young people, one of the most popular ways of immersing themselves in the host environment is to become an au pair: move in with a family and look after their children to get first-hand experience of the culture and become a proficient user of their language. The present study explores 10 Hungarian undergraduates’ socio-cultural and linguistic experiences and their perceptions of their au pair experiences in the UK as au pairs. Data were collected by a structured interview and a self-assessment language proficiency scale. Participants reported that after their experience, they overwhelmingly felt that they had achieved their goals: (1) they improved their proficiency, especially their oral production skills by becoming ‘more fluent’ in English; (2) they became independent and this experience helped them ‘grow up’. It has also emerged from their narratives that despite living with native speakers and having positive attitudes towards them and their culture, they found it difficult to establish closer contact with them. A kvalitatív kutatás tíz magyar gyermekfelügyelo nyelvi és szocio-kulturális tapasztalatát tárja fel Angliában. Az adatokat strukturált interjú és önértékelési skála segítségével gyujtöttük. A résztvevok szerint beszédkészségük és kiejtésük javult, attitudjük az anyanyelvu beszélokhöz kedvezoen alakult, bár interakciójuk korlátozott volt velük, valamint sikerült felnotté válniuk.

Developmental language disorders and adolescent risk: A public-health advocacy role for speech pathologists?

Within the multi-disciplinary team concerned with child and adolescent development, speech pathologists are uniquely positioned to understand the nature and overall developmental significance of language acquisition in childhood and adolescence. Other disciplines contribute valuable insights about psychosocial development during the childhood and adolescent years. The field of developmental psychology, for example provides a large and convincing body of evidence about the role of academic success as a protective factor against a range of psychosocial harms, in particular substance misuse, truancy, early school leaving, and juvenile offending. In this paper, we argue that juvenile offending embodies the notion of "adolescent risk", but in Australia in particular, has been under-investigated with respect to possible associations with developmental language disorders and subsequent academic failure. We present findings pertaining to a sample of 30 male juvenile offenders completing community based orders. Performance on a range of oral language processing and production skills was poorer than that of a demographically similar comparison group. Our results confirm the need to conceptualize language within a broader risk and protective framework. We therefore emphasize the public health importance of early language competence, by virtue of the psychosocial protection it confers on young people with respect to the development of prosocial skills, transition to literacy and overall academic achievement. We argue that speech pathologists are best positioned to advocate at a policy level about the broader public health importance of oral language competence.

Speech recognition apparatus and method for learning

The invention extends the capability of conventional computer speech recognition programs to reliably recognize and understand large word and phrase vocabularies for teaching language comprehension and oral production skills. At each step of a teaching program, information is supplied to the user such that some responses in the language being taught are correct (or appropriate) and some are incorrect (or inappropriate), with these respective sets of responses judiciously selected to teach some language aspect. A subset of allowable correct and incorrect responses is selected such that a speech recognition subprogram readily discerns certain allowable responses from other allowable responses, including each incorrect response being discriminable from each correct response. The meanings of at least the correct allowable responses are made clear by aural or visual information, such as graphic images, printed text, or translations into the user's native language. A model of the correct pronunciation of each allowable response may be available, with these models presented either exhaustively or selectively. The invention includes a mechanism for differentiating between improperly formed and deficient productions and providing corrective feedback upon deficient production. The mechanism for differentiating may include dummy, improperly formed speech models, and augmentative voice analyzers may be used. Augmentative monitors capturing non-acoustic measurements may be included.

Evaluating English oral skills through the technique of writing as if speaking

English elicited as language written-as-if-spoken (WAIS) may be helpful in evaluating oral productive skills. Although EFL teachers' blind rating of 1,000 brief WAIS English responses showed low inter-rater reliability, when hundreds of Finnish advanced learners wrote complete imaginary WAIS dialogues, these proved highly predictive both for interview- and for classroom-performance. Medical and veterinary students' WAIS dialogues, compared with actual taped discourse, exhibited generally accepted characteristics of spoken, as contrasted with written English. Guidelines for eliciting, modeling, and evaluating such WAIS dialogues are offered, for testing learners prior to interviewing or in place of interviews.